VALENTINE’S DAY A GIFT TO THE DESPERATE
▶ The rush for roses brings temporary relief to Venezuelans and Colombians experiencing dire economic times
Valentine’s Day is a crazy rush for Colombia, one of the biggest flower exporters in the world, resulting in huge demand for labour in greenhouses near Bogota.
That’s how Rubiela Mendez and William Perez found themselves shivering in a cold they’d never known, preparing roses in a hangar 500km from their hometown of Cucuta, on the jungle-steamy eastern border with Venezuela.
They are among hundreds of Colombians and Venezuelans brought in on buses – a 12-hour trip over not-so-great roads – to ready the fragrant flowers for shipment abroad.
Valentine’s Day today is one of the times of year Westerners spend the most on gifts. That means a bonanza for Colombia, which is the source of 74 per cent of US flower imports.
Last year, between January and November, Colombia’s flower industry earned $1.3 billion.
Those working to prepare the roses see only the minimum wage – $300 a month – but for Ms Mendez and Mr Perez and labourers like them from the border, that’s far better than what they had been earning.
Although Colombia has a nationwide unemployment rate of 10 per cent, joblessness in Cucuta is significantly higher, reaching 16 per cent last year.
Ms Mendez, 26, said the situation has worsened in past months, with Venezuelans who are fleeing economic despair in the country coming over the border to work for half the rate paid to Colombians in the town.
“The situation in Cucuta is very difficult. No one wants to go back there because there’s no work,” she said. “But me, I have to return, because my little girl is there.”
This work stint in Tabio, a town just north of Bogota, was the first time she had been separated from her daughter, 4.
The task involves taking cut roses and scrupulously maintaining the “cold chain” – a supply chain that ensures the flowers are kept at very low temperatures in storage and transport so they still appear fresh when sold in shops.
Ms Mendez and other workers gather and package bouquets of a dozen roses in spaces refrigerated to 10°C, while listening to tropical music on the radio.
They sleep in heated shipping containers, and are fed by the horticultural companies employing them.
Despite the basic conditions, the money is better than what Ms Mendez pocketed back in Cucuta. There, after losing a $7-a-day restaurant job, she barely made ends meet by selling contraband jerrycans of cheap Venezuelan petrol.
Her employer, Sunshine Bouquet, had initially sent recruiters to the border thinking it could hire Venezuelan migrants willing to handle the roses. Instead it found a desperate and willing Colombian workforce.
That’s how it came to be, in mid-January, that it brought in 600 people – 80 per cent of them Colombians – to its production centre.
In neighbouring Ecuador, meanwhile, getting the Valentine’s roses out of the country has been challenging this year, according to floraldaily.com, a news portal for the international horticulture industry. The infrastructure at the airports at Medellin and Quito were hit with high volumes, which resulted in major delays.
“We had days where we were 48 to 72 hours behind,” said Mario Vicente of Fresca Farms, a US distributor with farms in Colombia and Ecuador.
Fresca Farms started to ship out their Valentine’s flowers from South America around January 23 and had the biggest orders on two consecutive days early this month. They were not the only ones with a peak in volumes, which was visible at the airports.
“In Bogota, everything went smoother, but in Ecuador not,” said Mr Vincente.
“The airports could not handle the amount of boxes as there seemed to be fewer planes. Some growers were even asked to come back the next day. This resulted in delays of 48 to 72 hours.”
Timing seems to be a key word this year.
Roses, particularly in the southern area of Quito, were four to five days late because of cold days.
In Colombia, the number of stems were lower this year, also because of the weather and probably the lower amount of sunlight.
“All in all, this resulted in more ‘timing’ challenges because we had to push back the orders several days,” Mr Vincente said.
Fortunately, the quality of this year’s crop is, according to Mr Vicente, very good.
“When the production is late, the flowers will have less time in storage at the farm and are therefore fresher,” he said.
Back in Cucuta, there are many who would be grateful for any kind of crop to harvest.
“There are people suffering, and who very much want to work,” said Sunshine Bouquet boss Felipe Gomez.
Mr Perez, a 24-year-old Colombian, was relieved when he was chosen. He had spent seven years in Venezuela, and had returned home as the crisis there obliterated previous oil-buoyed prosperity.
“There is fear, horrible despair” in Venezuela now, he said, describing rampant public safety woes and lack of food.
The outflow of people from Venezuela is reversing a trend that had once seen Colombians heading to their neighbour to escape a half-century conflict between their government and Marxist FARC rebels.
Today, the FARC has disarmed and transformed into a political party.
And Venezuela has become destitute, prey to hyperinflation.
Colombian officials say more than 550,000 Venezuelans have crossed the border, legally or illegally, and the number is expected to double by June.
But the outflow is even greater, once repatriating Colombians are taken into account.
According to Ivan Daniel Jaramillo, at a labour observatory in Bogota’s Del Rosario University, unemployment in Cucuta spiked “because it is a border zone receiving this migratory pressure”.
The rose business in Tabio, as seasonal as it is, doesn’t represent a long-term solution for the 600 labourers brought in.
But it is a temporary fix that has given them some respite.
Many hope to be taken on as full-time employees by the company, which has promised to hire 20 per cent after the Valentine’s Day rush is over, or to find some other opportunity.
“If I don’t get to stay, I’d like to try Bogota and start a new life,” said Mr Perez, grinning among the flowers.
The situation in Cucuta is very difficult. No one wants to go back there because there’s no work
RUBIELA MENDEZ
Labourer